“I rolled out this morning. Kids had the mornin’ news show on”; “There’s a local paper rolled up in a rubber band. One more sad story’s one more than I can stand.”; “Just once how I’d like to see the headline say, ‘Not much to print today, can’t find nothin’ bad to say.'”; “How I want to hear the anchor man talk about a county fair and how we cleaned up the air, how everybody learned to care”.

That kind of sums it up for me.

I talked with my youngest son today and he told me that he had long ago given up paying much attention to the news. Too much negativity. He is concentrating on making a good life for him and his new wife and hoping to use his talents as a graphic designer to maybe make a difference somewhere outside of his growing family circle.

Yesterday afternoon my wife and I paid an infrequent visit to live theater and viewed a stage production of “Pippin” which has been billed as “a high-flying, death-defying hit musical full of extraordinary acrobatics, wondrous magical feats and soaring songs from the composer of WICKED.” And, “This unforgettable new production will lift you up and leave you smiling!”

It sure did ….. even though it took both of us a little time to catch on to what this was all about. And we agreed that we walked away with a new understanding about how while youth and inexperience sometimes lead us to imagine and pursue grand scenarios based on how we see ourselves as exceptional people destined for exceptional lives, we not infrequently find deep satisfaction in discovering that “ordinary” lives and activities prove to be deeply rewarding.

So, I did a quick search for what I think is “a little good news”.

Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims continue to drop after peaking in 2008-2009. In my home state of Maine businesses gearing up for the tourist season are reporting that there are more available jobs than there are applicants even with significant numbers of out-of-state workers (including none-citizens) applying.

Coal miners are going back to work in large numbers in Kentucky and Tennessee

The American Steel industry is showing signs of improvement.

Many industry-smothering executive orders and regulations from the Obama administration are being overturned.

The National Anthem and the Canadian National Anthem are still rendered (sometimes quite beautifully) prior to the beginning of professional hockey games involving teams from those two countries …… and during the Stanley Cup Playoffs each completed series features the opposing teams shaking hands no matter how hard-fought and occasionally acrimonious the contests may have been.

Locally: A regional Boy Scouts Jamboree was well attended in my home town of Freeport, ME. My local Masonic Lodge is looking forward to our next monthly public supper that provides not only a home cooked meal at a reasonable price by also an opportunity for some of our older residents to get out and socialize with their neighbors.

The majority of support (93.3%) for American art consisting of nonprofit performing arts groups and museums comes from the private sector (including 8.4% from corporations) while all government, including Federal and local, contributions amount to 6.7 percent. With the National Endowment for the Arts contributing 1.2 percent the defunding of this particular agency would hardly result in, as described by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof “(how) the Romans must have felt in 456 A.D. as the barbarians conquered and ushered in the dark ages”.